Vazhaipoo Dal is a healthy dal made with toor dal and banana Blossom. This is served with steamed rice for the main course.
Vazhaipoo or banana blossom is a healthy edible flower that we can add to our diet. Prepping this flower is a tedious process that sometimes we don’t want to take the pains to get it. However, all of us love this and when we have enough time, we surely get it. We have mostly made Vazhapoo Vadai that is so delicious and sometimes make Vazhaipoo Poriyal. We can also make a usili with these blossoms.
Today is our last day of the Mega BM themed on Thalis and Platters. We had decided the theme almost two years ago, almost during Jan 2019. It was a big topic for us during our BM#100 Meet. It was planned for April 2020. The pandemic made us postpone to Sep 2020.
The first clause we decided was to showcase a new thali for each day. To make it easy, we also said one can use a thali that was already shared, however, during this marathon, we can’t repeat the same thali, so each thali can have recipes that were already shared on the blog. Each day thali meeting the clause kept for all five weeks had to have at least one new dish meeting the theme. I know it was so tough. Given that we had time, we decided we can meet it.
Planning the different Thalis:
As I have been doing it the last few Mega BM, I decided to do on both the sites. So I also end up planning a new theme as a sub theme for both the blogs. In C4AS, since I do share nonveg dishes, I decided to showcase our regional cuisine featuring different Non Veg Thalis we make at home. I knew it was tough, we somehow managed it. While it is a frequent feature of a hotel serving nonveg thali, making it at home is quite a task.
Amma always gets excited with the themes I plan and is a willing partner in cooking different dishes. Sometimes she does ask me why I end up planning such tough ones. In the end, all of us do enjoy this whole process.
Today’s dal is yet another recipe from Amma. Along with the dal we also made the vada and had the masala peanuts to make the meal more interesting. On SYL, its a simple meal with loads of memories.
Thalis & Platters
Week 1 – Platters for Elders
Indo Chinese Platter for Day 1
Idli Platter for Day 2
Pakoda Platter for Day 3
Colourful Rangoli Food Thali for Day 4
Week 2 – Thalis featuring Non Veg Regional Cuisines – Non Veg Thali
Chicken Donne Biryani – Non Veg Thali 1 for Day 1
Raju gari Kodi Pulao – Non Veg Thali 2 for Day 2
Mutton Biryani – Non Veg Thali 3 for Day 3
Mutton Dum Biryani – Non Veg Thali 4 for Day 4
Fish Curry – Non Veg Thali 5 for Day 5
Prawns Curry – Non Veg Thali 5 for Day 6
Week 3 – Thalis featuring Indian Flatbreads
Banarasi Kachori aur Sabzi Thali for Day 1
Bengali Dhakai Paratha Nasta Thali for Day 2
Bihari Chana Dal Puri aur Sabji Nasta Thali for Day 3
Gujarati Dhebra aur Sabzi Thali for Day 4
Punjabi Amritsari Kulcha Thali for Day 5
Rajasthani Tikkar aur Sabzi Thali for Day 6
Week 4 – Thalis featuring Breakfast from different Indian States
Goan Breakfast Thali for Day 1
Coorg Breakfast Thali for Day 2
Kerala Breakfast Thali for Day 3
Odia Breakfast Thali for Day 4
Punjabi Breakfast Thali for Day 5
No Rice Tamil Nadu Breakfast Thali for Day 6
Week 5 – Simple every day assembled mini thalis
Aviyal for Day 1
Chinna Vengaya Kuzhambu for Day 2
Thengai Sadam for Day 3
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Ingredients Used to make Vazhaipoo Dal
Toor dal is used for making this dal. If using Split Yellow Moong Dal you can make a kootu with coconut that will be so delicious as well.
Soaking and sauteing to cook the blossom is important, else you will find it is not cooked well.
Vazhaipoo Dal | How to make Banana Blossom Dal
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Toor Dal
- 1 cup Banana Blossoms about 100 gms
- 2 tsp Cooking Oil
- 3 to 4 nos Green Chilies
- 2 Dry Red Chilies
- 1 tsp Cumin Seeds
- Handful Curry Leaves
- 2 inch Tamarind about a small lemon size.
Instructions
- Wash the toor dal and pressure cook to 3/ 4th. Switch off and wait for the pressure fall down.
- Clean and prep the blossoms and chop it fine.
- Soak in water until using.
- Once the pressure falls down, open and add the drained blossoms to the dal.
- Add 1 cup water and bring to a boil. Add the tamarind extract and continue boiling.
- Cook in low flame while you get the tempering ready.
- In another pan, heat the oil and temper with cumin seeds, mustard, curry leaves, chopped green chilies and red chili. Saute well.
- Once done, pour this on the simmering dal. Mix well and cook till everything combines well and the dal reaches a thick consistency.
Notes
Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#116
4 comments
It is nice Valli that your mother and mother-in-law both help you out sometimes in planning and cooking the dishes. I vividly remember helping my maternal grand mother once to prepare the banana flower for cooking when I was younger and staining the clothes in the process. My mother never cooked with it as it was not available for us locally. The whole meal looks inviting.
That is a simple and comforting platter. Cooking with a banana flower is a tedious process for sure. I haven’t ever cooked with it. I remember my mom doing the prep work but in recent times I don’t think I have seen her work with it.
Had a lovely time running the marathon with you. Thanks for your initiative with the Mega marathon.
Amma and ammama used to make Vazhipoovu every now and then when we were growing up. We never had it as dal though. I avoid it since it’s too much work :D. The vadas look crispy and delicious!
From what I understand the whole process of preparing the banana flower is tedious – so it’s like a rare dish and a delicacy .
If one has help , it might be doable , but for people like us – it’s hard as we can’t procure the main ingredient !
As a everyday thali it surely must have been a task.
But kudos to you for working on both the sites , it surely is a achievement !